CNN's Richard Quest hails news impact of 'the almighty mobile'

CNN's Richard Quest outlines the impact of mobile at the Nokia World conference

Are mobile phones changing the news industry? An easy question to answer: just look at the number of TV networks, newspapers and news sites that ran the mobile phone footage of the captured Muammar Gaddafi earlier in October.

The topic of news and mobility was probed at the Nokia World conference this morning in a presentation by CNN's international business correspondent Richard Quest.

He started by wondering how the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 might have been covered if Twitter had existed at the time, drawing a direct parallel to the 2009 emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River in New York, and a famous Twitpic of the passengers waiting to be rescued.

"We've already seen in this one instance the way in which we're getting a convergence of mobile phone, social media, and it all creates a new environment in the news world," said Quest.

He moved on to the protests across the Middle East earlier in 2010, and the role mobile phones played in getting footage and opinions out to the rest of the world.

"It doesn't matter if it was in Cairo or Bahrain, Syria or Yemen, this small device has managed to bring home the reality of what's happening in the world, and in doing so has changed the way people like me do our business," said Quest.

He cited stats claiming by the end of this year "there will be more mobile phones than toothbrushes in this world… Which sad bugger worked out that sort of statistic?"

Quest also referred to the Gaddafi death, pointing out that even US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got the news on her own mobile – the moment, and her shocked expression, was captured by TV cameras.

"It's a small empowering powerful device, but be under no illusion: with that device in your pocket, you are all your own citizen journalists," said Quest. "I don't think you can do the job as well as I can. But certainly together, we can all benefit from the almighty mobile."

Quest was asked how the growth in mobile and social media usage changes the team around him at CNN: what new skills and roles are needed to gather and filter the huge amounts of information out there on newsworthy events?

"Not only do you have to have the infrastructure to go out and gather the news and bring it in, but when you have iReports and citizen journalists sending in their material, you have to have an infrastructure in place to guard against rogue stories and exaggerated facts," he said.

"Your credibility is like your virginity: once it's gone, it ain't coming back! The world is replete with stories of newspapers and television companies that have been roundly hoaxed. Whenever there's a big story with vast potential to get social media content and find out what's happening, your first object is to prod into that, and then test it to see whether it's valid. If you don't do the second part, you're basically a bilge pump."

Quest said that every TV newsroom meeting now has a section on what stories are buzzing on social networks, but warned that social media still does not drive the agenda in terms of the big story of any day.

"The big story of the day is always going to be driven by what's happened, and by the facts and the events," he said.

"Where there is a component for social media is what people are saying about it and how people are reacting to it. That is no different to the days where you had the radio phone-in and people sending letters to the editor."

"I hope I'm wrong, but I think the victory of the screen is going to win out," he said. "It raises the fundamental question: is the quality of reading and comprehension as good when you read it on a screen as when you read it on a physical paper?… I do worry that the days of the physical paper are seriously numbered."